Comcast, global ISPs blocking The Pirate Bay?

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Earlier this week, the largest BitTorrent lawsuit ever was lodged against an alleged 23,000 file sharers. Now it appears that Internet Service Providers, including Comcast, may actually be actively preventing their users from attempting to illegally share or download content.

Reports were flooding in this morning that users were unable to access The Pirate Bay’s site. According to TorrentFreak, numerous Comcast subscribers are complaining that the site is inaccessible. The down time appeared to be exclusively affecting Comcast, as tests showed 3G and 4G devices were able to load the page without issue. “Further tests show that the blockade is not DNS related. What is actually causing the issue is uncertain at this point,” TorrentFreak claims. As the issue continues to unravel, however, it appears that the site is inaccessible for users worldwide. And seeing as Comcast is a U.S. ISP only, it’s increasingly likely that the problem lies elsewhere.

TorrentFreak has suggest this was not an intentional act by Comcast, but rather some sort of “mismatch” between its’ connection and The Pirate Bay’s site. It wouldn’t be the first time for Comcast, however, which eventually admitted to blocking BitTorrent traffic four years ago, which spurred the Net Neutrality debates – which do not allow ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic.

We’re highly doubtful that Comcast would take this kind of a risk after the hot water it landed itself in last time. That said, the provider did make a rather questionable hiring decision.